For Honor Trailer Focuses on the Factions, Closed Alpha Starts Next Month

August 17, 2016
Written by Jason Dunning

Ubisoft offered up some new For Honor details at gamescom today, including what you’ll find in the Collector’s Case, available exclusively on Uplay:

For Honor Gold Edition: the base game, the Digital Deluxe Pack from the Deluxe Edition, and the full Season Pass

An exclusive Collector’s Box

Three 1/3 scale, full metal warrior helmets on wooden stands representing the Knights, the Vikings and the Samurai

An exclusive lithography

The game’s original soundtrack

By pre-ordering For Honor, you’ll receive the Legacy Battle Pack, which includes three exclusive Hero outfits wearable by the Warden, Raider, and Kensei Heroes.

When For Honor launches on February 14, 2017, it will include 12 playable heroes and five multiplayer modes. Those 12 heroes are split into three factions (Knights, Vikings, and Samurai), with each faction getting four types of elite champions (Vanguards, Assassins, Heavies, and Hybrids), all with their own advantages, weapons, and fighting styles:

Vanguards are well-balanced Heroes, with good attack, and defense capabilities and great versatility.

Assassins are swift and lethal characters, great duelists with very good offense

Heavies are the most resistant Heroes, their attacks are slow but deadly. They’re especially efficient for defending a point and annihilating AI enemies.

Hybrids mix elements and characteristics of other types. They are advanced characters fostering uncommon tactics

Additionally, you can customize your warriors – from gender to weapon/armor color schemes – and that customization factors into each hero’s progression when you loot new parts at the end of each match.

Here’s what Ubisoft said about For Honor’s multiplayer modes:

In addition to the story-driven campaign – which covers all three factions’ perspectives – you’ll be able to batter and slash your way through five multiplayer modes. The centerpiece is Dominion, a four-on-four battle for territory in which you’ll need to hold control points and push back your opponents’ weak but relentless rank-and-file troops to own the central battlefield in each stage. Communication and teamwork are vital here, as is keeping an eye on your opponents and going after the territories they’re not holding. Once your team controls all three points, the match enters a “breaking” phase, in which the losing team stops respawning. If you can eliminate all four players before they can reclaim a point, your team wins the round.

Smaller but no less brutal are Brawl, a two-on-two mode in which teams win rounds by killing off their opponents, and Duel, which pits two players against each other in a no-distractions game of counters, parries, and quick deaths. Skirmish, meanwhile, is a four-vs.-four team deathmatch-style mode in which players score points with kills, and Elimination is a four-on-four match in which nobody respawns and the last player standing wins the round for their team.

Ubisoft also announced today that the For Honor Closed Alpha will run from September 15 to 18 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can register for the Alpha over here, but keep in mind that not everyone will chosen to participate.